Get this ... on compression

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noisedude

noisedude

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A lecturer at university told me today ... totally straight-faced, that compressors don't alter a signal's sound. "No, you don't understand," he said, "They only operate in the amplitude domain - here's the page in the textbook you need to read to find out about compression."

"No", I said, "People spend huge amounts of money on tube compressors and so on because they like the sound!"

His reply: "Well, a tiny amount of alteration is unavoidable due to the circuitry, but other than that they are all as good as each other."

Just crazy claim after crazy claim. He went on to say that in our studio his favourite compressor, above dbx and Drawmer ones is ............ the Alesis 3630. :eek:
 
You need to destroy him before he has kids!
Those who don't know teach. His farvorite being the 3630 is because he can't afford a godd compressor.
 
noisedude said:
A lecturer at university told me today ... totally straight-faced, that compressors don't alter a signal's sound.
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Bullsh*t... that's about as truthful as I'm selling the state of Texas... ask him if he wants to buy it... lol.

PS... if you recorded the lecturer, you should send the recording to the university and ask them to stop teaching bullsh*t crap at their university... I'd even report it to the educational borad and etc.
 
Maybe you could arrange for this Rane Article on Good Dynamics Processing to fall on his desk so he can read about how compressors sound and what gives individual models their own character, hehe. :)
 
He stood in front of our class with his graphs (one of which was backwards, incidentally) of amplitude in and out, and told us all the theory he knew ... but when someone asked what makeup gain was, he said that was to do with expanders ... !

Crazy. If I was on the Music Technology degree course I'd ask for my money back ... thankfully I'm just using the module to get time to play around in the studio ;);)
 
DJL said:
Bullsh*t... that's about as truthful as I'm selling the state of Texas... ask him if he wants to buy it... lol.

PS... if you recorded the lecturer, you should send the recording to the university and ask them to stop teaching bullsh*t crap at their university... I'd even report it to the educational borad and etc.
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If you recorded the lecturer, you should run it through a 3630 and an LA2A and show him the difference.
 
I could trade my VariMu for around 100 used Alesis 3630's...

Chain 'em all together...

Think about that for a minute...
 
Massive Master said:
I could trade my VariMu for around 100 used Alesis 3630's...
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*Quickly gathering all the used 3630's I can get my hands on*

"Ahem... Hello John....?"

:p
 
Can I take it now and pay you in three thousand, three-hundrend and sixty installments?
 
noisedude said:
A lecturer at university told me today ... totally straight-faced, that compressors don't alter a signal's sound. "No, you don't understand," he said, "They only operate in the amplitude domain - here's the page in the textbook you need to read to find out about compression."

"No", I said, "People spend huge amounts of money on tube compressors and so on because they like the sound!"

His reply: "Well, a tiny amount of alteration is unavoidable due to the circuitry, but other than that they are all as good as each other."

Just crazy claim after crazy claim. He went on to say that in our studio his favourite compressor, above dbx and Drawmer ones is ............ the Alesis 3630. :eek:
Click to expand...

Theoretically, if all a circuit does is compress a signal, it won't alter the sound (other than the compression itself) When you get away from the world of music and into other applications - such as noise suppression in cordless phones and (I think) Dolby noise reduction systems - what you get out is pretty much unaltered. (Noise suppression systems compress a signal, sends it to the receiver, then expands it again)

In the world of musical compressors (for instruments) the circuitry usually alters the sound, for better or worse.

Some people, and perhaps the lecturer was one, get so hung up in the theoretical world that they can't see (or hear) what the real world is telling them.
 
Be happy about your professor. The first thing I would do is go buy a few Alesis 3630's on Ebay for $25 a piece and trade him straight across for all his other comps. He will be a lucky man becuase he can then have a rack full of his favorite comps. Then he will be grateful to you. After that you can explain to him that all preamps sound the same because they just make things louder and quieter. And all EQ's sound the same too. And all reverbs with the same parameters sound the same as well. This will be great because then you can go get a couple old Alesis midiverbs, and some Behringer parametric EQ's and a couple little Behringer mixers and trade him as well. Maybe for about $1000 you can get your self a nice little Neve 32 channel desk from him and a Lexicon 960. Best of all, he gets all his favorite stuff:D
 
jfrog said:
Some people, and perhaps the lecturer was one, get so hung up in the theoretical world that they can't see (or hear) what the real world is telling them.
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Bingo!!!! Frankly, he doesn't have the people skills to be an engineer ... he can barely manage to speak to us mortals ... and this guy's in his late 20s and doesn't even have a PHD! What's he doing teaching in my university ... who knows.
 
noisedude said:
Bingo!!!! Frankly, he doesn't have the people skills to be an engineer ... he can barely manage to speak to us mortals ... and this guy's in his late 20s and doesn't even have a PHD! What's he doing teaching in my university ... who knows.
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Wtf?!? That's kind of weird. Where do you go to school?

Like others said, he is apparently caught up in the theory. I think the problem is his wording.

He should have said that compressION doesn't alter sound. However, a compressOR will.

Of course, you have to use a some kind of compressor when you want to intentionally compress something, no matter what, so that's where the 'theory' quits.
 
Now hold on a minute fella's.............!!! The ALESIS 3630, while much maligned & ridiculed by the masses, does indeed perform certain tasks exceptionally well! When utilized correctly, the 3630 will provide the user with satisfactory results in a few, particular instances.
The few instances that I found the 3630 most useful are:

A)-A door-stop.

B)-A paper-weight.

C)-Enhancing one's Christmas light decorations on the X-mas tree (place at base of tree for added emphasis)

D)-Make excellent bookends.

In the dynamics arena, running a bass thru the 3630 with a real slow ATTACK and a hi-Thresh, will provide a "Woooosh" (unintended on it's part)
effect that one might want to use in a perf (sound artifacts are extremely audible during compression) be it good or bad.
The ONLY use I find for the 3630 is it's occasionally adequate "hiss" control on drum machines & other noisey effects via it's gates (& even that function can become useless if you are trying to "fine-clip the tail" of a 'Verb or Delay or control the decay.

Some folks such as Ed "sonusman" Rei swears by it while also achieving optimal perf from the unit but for avg,impatient folks like me who require ease of use,operational transparency and clarity, the 3630 can kiss my entire @$$!
RNC baby!!!! THE RNC!
 
That's why we use compression, because it doesn't alter the sound. John spent all that money on that VariMu and look what it got him, no sound alteration at all. Money well spent....aaaahhhhhh

War
 
The process of compression can alter the envelope of a sound - depending on the settings - so yes, compression CAN DEFINITELY alter the sound itself (in addition to any alterations induced by the compressor circuitry itself.)

The guy who gave that lecture is apparently clueless about practical compression applications.
 
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